Bad Faith (Mason Ashford Thriller Series Book 1)

by Nick Stevens

“I can’t believe you shot at me. I’d place you under arrest, but I’m suspended and can’t do that.”

  Bethany struggled, but Sal had the injured woman pinned. Looking for where she’d shot Bethany, Sal found a small graze wound on her right leg. A thin trickle of blood seeped from it, but it didn’t look serious.

  Sal looked around for a way to secure her prisoner. Finding nothing, she yanked off one of her muddy sneakers, ripping the laces from the shoe. She wrapped the makeshift binding around Bethany’s wrists.

  With Bethany secured, Sal found her purse and dug around, finding an assortment of makeup, a phone, a bottle of pain killers, and more bullets for the pistol. Unlocking the luxury SUV, she forced Bethany to her feet and shoved her into the cargo area.

  “Wait! You can’t leave in me in here!”

  Sal slammed the lift gate, muffling Bethany’s screaming.

  “Breaking all the rules today, Detective,” Sal whispered to the car.

  “What was that?” Haneul said, more panic in his voice than he intended.

  Bon-Hwa stood. “Those were gunshots.” He forgave Haneul’s excitement. The man was an accountant, little more than a bookkeeper. His battlefields were offices and conference rooms. He had little taste for the potential violence his position promised, but he enjoyed the perks all the same.

  Paul burst from a room behind the two men, pulling on clothes. He scanned the room, surprised his guests were already waiting for him. “Was that your man?”

  “Sergeant Ong would never be so careless.” Bon-Hwa forced an air of superiority to Paul as he gnawed on his lower lip. Ong hadn’t fired that shot. His pistol had a suppressor.

  Haneul, slouched low in a worn leather recliner in the brothel’s small common area, looked up at his boss. “What do you want to do?”

  Bon-Hwa wanted the situation with Paul resolved, but an unknown shooter, or shooters, were outside. He grabbed his pistol from his jacket, a compact Czech CZ-75 that Sergeant Ong acquired for him. Bon-Hwa hadn’t fired the weapon, any weapon, in years. His preferred weapons were keyboards and networks, not the clunky weapons his party obsessed over.

  Taking his superior’s lead, Haneul found his own pistol and racked the slide. Bon-Hwa knew Haneul had even less confidence with a firearm than he did.

  Bon-Hwa explored the room around him, then looked outside. The car they’d arrived in sat dormant, parked on the grass.

  “Did Lieutenant Kim leave the keys?”

  “I doubt it. He probably has them in his jacket.”

  Bon-Hwa’s hands went to his temples, rubbing in small circles. His stoic disposition began cracking in front of his subordinate.

  “Haneul, get the rifle from the back of the car.”

  “What?”

  “Ong keeps an American rifle in the car, below the panel in the luggage area. It’s in a black nylon bag. Go get it. Then we’ll find out what’s happening.”

  The crack of the gunshots carried through the night, finding Mason crouched behind the shallow wall of a small open-air amphitheater, A black Mercedes G-class sat parked twenty feet from where he waited. The SUV parked near a squat building, elevated a few feet above the ground on pilings. Wood siding comprised the bottom half of its front wall. Large screens formed the top half. A short set of stairs sat in the center of the building, leading to a simple screened in door.

  Across the clearing, Mason watched silhouettes gather near the front door, the distinctive sound of gunfire alerting them to danger. The front door of the building opened with a groan. A man took cautious steps down the stairs, eyes locked on the SUV.

  Mason saw the dull glint of a pistol in the man’s hand. Fumbling for the keys he’d taken from Kim Wook, he pressed the remote start button, bathing the man in harsh white light.

  The man froze, unsure of his next move.

  A voice boomed from inside the building in a language Mason didn’t recognize. The frozen man turned to run back into the building.

  Mason stood, then stumbled sideways on his injured leg. It stiffened as he crouched, and the throbbing pain returned as he called it back into service. Righting himself, he aimed at the back of the man as he climbed the stairs. Pulling the trigger twice, Mason watched the man collapse on the stairs as the silent bullets tore through him.

  Shielding his eyes from the blinding headlights, Bon-Hwa watched as his friend collapsed. Haneul stared back at his friend through the screen door, confused, as his life drained away. Crawling towards the door to rescue his friend, Bon-Hwa pushed the door open, stopping as two rounds impacted the door frame, inches from his head.

  Rolling back into the room, he crawled to Paul, already prone on the wood floor. Sticking the gun into Paul’s face, Bon-Hwa screamed, “You betrayed us!”

  Eyes wide, Paul shook his head. “I didn’t! I swear! I don’t know who’s out there.”

  Bon-Hwa realized he might need the pathetic man to escape and resisted shooting Paul on the spot. “Who’s out there? How many?”

  Still staring at the gun inches from his face, Paul shouted, “I don’t know! No one knows about this place. Just us.”

  Bon-Hwa shoved aside the feckless man and got to his feet, ducking to stay out of the headlights that bathed the room.

  He needed a plan. Glancing around the room, he spotted door after door, each with available hostages.

  Crawling over the low wall, Mason stayed low and worked his way around the outside of the SUV, keeping it between him and the building. Using the engine compartment and wheels for cover, he stuck his head up as the screen door groaned. Another man, this one in a low crawl, eased the door open with his free hand. The other held a pistol.

  Mason aimed and squeezed the trigger twice. Both rounds impacted the door frame and his target rolled back into the building. He watched the man lying on the stairs extended an arm to the doorway, then collapse as the door swung shut.

  The slide on the pistol locked back on the empty magazine. Setting it aside, Mason drew his own pistol.

  Muffled voices came from inside, followed by a woman screaming seconds later.

  The headlights from the SUV still bathed the front of the building in light. Knowing the lights still blinded the people inside and, taking a risk, he ducked low and limped from the cover of the car to the far side of the building.

  Gunshots from inside the building hit the SUV, knocking out the headlights with multiple shots. Mason lost count in the rapid fire.

  A man inside shouted in heavily accented English, “We have hostages and will kill them all. Your only choice is to surrender.” Another scream echoed from inside. “Do you hear me?”

  Mason ignored him and crept around the building.

  Bon-Hwa shouted into the night, “Surrender immediately!” Aiming into the lights to shoot them out left trace impressions on his retinas, leaving him blinded for a short time. He debated firing more shots into the night as a deterrent, but he knew he didn’t have a spare magazine.

  Seeing Paul cowering on the floor, Bon-Hwa shouted at him, “Get up!” Shoving the short redhead toward the door, he pointed his weapon at Paul. “Go,” he said, nodding to the door. “We’re getting out of here and you’re going first.”

  Long past the effects of the heroin, a river of tears ran down the woman’s face. Sobbing, she opened the door, the loud squeal of its hinges echoing into the night.

  Mason neared the end of the building in his search for a rear entrance as the sound of the front door opening carried through the night. Turning, he raced back to where he started, pistol held high.

  Seeing three people walking towards the car, he moved to his left as much as he dared, putting the three in slight profile. A gun came into view, held by the shorter man at the back of the line.

  Mason let out a high-pitched whistle, his aim on the man with the gun.

  The man turned his head to the sharp noise as two bullets impacted his chest. The man collapsed to the ground, his pistol falling to the dirt. The second man, dressed in all white, mov
ed to grab it. Mason moved in and clubbed him with the butt of his pistol, putting the angelic man on the ground.

  Kicking the gun aside and keeping his own pistol on the prone man, Mason turned to the naked woman. “You’re safe. No one is going to hurt you.”

  The girl ran back into the building she’d come from. Mason heard wailing from inside.

  Chapter 26

  Mason took a short length of rope from his pack and lashed the unconscious man’s hands behind his back.

  Standing, he aimed at the Korean’s head to check his kill. Before he could pull the trigger, a procession of women walked down the stairs, wearing simple dresses. As they got closer, Mason saw their eyes rimmed in red. Several had needle marks running up and down their arms.

  Picking up the pistol from the grass, Mason ejected the magazine and the chambered round, placing them all into his pack.

  The women gathered around the bound man as he regained consciousness.

  “Sisters,” he said. “Help me.”

  The redhead kicked the man in the groin, eliciting a howl. The others followed her example. In moments, Mason couldn’t see the man behind a flurry of kicks from their thin legs. He let the women have their rage.

  Lights flashed from a distance. Mason turned to see Sal approaching in the familiar Range Rover.

  Watching the carnage, Sal, “Damn. There’s more of them.”

  “What do you mean, more of them?”

  “Well, when the gunshots started, half a dozen women ran past me out to the road. I didn’t expect there’d be more of them. They looked as starved and wasted as these women.”

  Mason shook his head. “What’d we get into, Sal?”

  “Like I said before. Sex trafficking. And drugs. They always go together.”

  Ducking his head, he spotted Chloe Stewart in the backseat. He thought she looked miserable. “She okay?”

  “Going to have a rough couple of days, but she’ll live.”

  Pointing to the chaos a few feet away, Sal asked, “You’re going to let them kill that man?”

  Mason turned to Sal, sitting in the plush leather seat. “I guess you’re right. I’ll stop it, but you should probably talk to them.”

  Sal climbed out of the car as Mason fired a round into the air. The flurry of kicks stopped as the women cowered and retreated a few steps back.

  Sal called out to the women, “Who is that man?”

  A tall blonde woman, her cheeks sunken and eyes hollow, spoke first, “Paul. He did this. All of it.” She spit on Paul’s bloody, mutilated face. From twenty feet away, Sal and Mason heard Paul wheezing, fighting for breath through a shattered nose and broken jaw.

  Finding the landline phone in the gatehouse, Sal dialed 911, connecting her to the Allegany County Sheriff’s Office in Cumberland, Maryland. She gave the dispatcher her name, department, and badge number, again omitting her suspension.

  Sal repeated herself as the shocked dispatcher took notes. Mason overheard Sal’s side of the call from outside as he tried getting Chloe to drink water as she shivered and sweat in the back seat of the Range Rover.

  Kim Wook, hands and feet tied, sat on the gravel. Both exhausted and alert from his own ordeal, his mouth opened as if to ask a question, but closed before speaking.

  Mason and Sal left Paul where he lay, neither willing to offer first aid or comfort to a monster. They didn’t discuss it, but each sensed the other’s agreement to leave him for the police.

  Bethany Kaine screamed until Mason opened the lift gate. Her injuries left her a shadow of the beautiful woman he encountered at Gridlock. She begged Mason to search her purse for painkillers, and he relented as Sal shot him a dirty look.

  Sal hung up with the dispatcher. “Sheriff’s department will be here in twenty minutes. Maybe less.”

  They put the women they’d found into the house near the front of the old scout camp. The women devoured every morsel of food in the building and drained several bottles from the makeshift bar. Each of them stared ahead, silent and lost in thought until the tears came.

  Mason took the phone and called Chief Justice Borisov, sharing good news of Chloe’s recovery. Mason suspected he’d need a brilliant and cheap lawyer before his life returned to normal. Being in the judge’s good graces would help.

  Eighteen minutes later, six cars from the sheriff’s department tore into the camp. Others stopped on the long dirt road to help the lost women that ran past Sal on their way out of the camp.

  Ambulances followed five minutes behind the police.

  Once the deputy sheriffs grasped the scale and scope of the abuse endured at the old camp, they called in the FBI for support. What Sal and Mason had uncovered went well beyond the capabilities of their local department.

  Sal and Mason gave their statements, including a rich accounting by Sal of what Aaron shared with her over torture. The only person alive able to dispute her story was Bethany Kaine. She wasn’t talking.

  Epilogue

  Mason undid the top two buttons of his shirt. It rained earlier that day, adding to the oppressive humidity in the District in July. He stripped off his jacket, draping it over a leather armchair, and let the air conditioning drift over him.

  Walking around the wood paneled office, Mason saw pictures of a young Jonathan Borisov in Bulgaria, visiting distant family for the first time. Borisov was born in the US to immigrant parents fleeing the Bulgarian Communist Party in 1954. Jonathan was born a year later.

  Framed diplomas hung on the wall, both from Harvard, next to a picture of the future Chief Justice with his parents at his graduation from Harvard Law School in 1979.

  A Washington Post headline caught his attention. Hanging closest to the sturdy wooden desk, it read “Deputy US Marshal Rescues Federal Judge.” Mason’s service picture displayed side by side with Borisov’s. The headline made his shoulder ache. He rotated his arm, stretching the repaired joint.

  A cheerful voice came from the office door. “Mr. Ashford, the Chief Justice will be right with you. Is there anything I can get for you?”

  A young woman with flame red hair stood in the doorway, dressed in the standard garb of the Court: dark slacks and a pressed white shirt. Wide, bottle green eyes stared back at him, set deep into her pale complexion.

  “No, thank you. Your voice sounds familiar. Have we met?”

  “We talked on the phone once. I’m Ashley Thompson, one of Chief Justice Borisov’s clerks.”

  “That’s right! Thank you again for all of your help. We couldn’t have saved those girls without you.”

  Ashley stepped into the room, closing the door behind her. “I appreciate that, but I wanted to thank you, for what you did out there. You saved so many lives, and you saved families.”

  “I had a lot of help.”

  Ashley closed in on Mason, taking his hand in hers. Her voice turned seductive. “If I can ever help with anything else, here’s my number.”

  Mason dropped the card into his pocket. “I’ll keep that in mind, Ms. Thompson.”

  One hundred eighty miles away, a white Bureau of Prisons van pulled up to Federal Correctional Institution Hazelton, a medium security facility in middle of nowhere West Virginia. Bethany glared at the beige walls and towers through the metal mesh and glass. Fencing topped with razor wire stretched as far as she could see. Leaning forward, she looked up to the nearest tower. Two guards cradling shotguns stared back at her.

  One guard flinched as she came into view, turning away.

  After her arrest, Bethany spent four weeks in a burn unit at Johns Hopkins, receiving care for the burns on her face and neck. The doctor congratulated her on not needing skin grafts, as if becoming a monster needed congratulating. As the burns healed, the skin puckered and raised as it scarred, transforming her once beautiful face into a pinched and asymmetrical mask. She couldn’t fully open her right eye due to scarring, even though she’d regained her vision.

  A patch of scarred flesh displaced her treasured blonde locks from her ri
ght eyebrow through the right side of her scalp.

  She’d worn a wig and sunglasses during the trial. Paul died from his injuries several days after everything went wrong at the compound, and Bethany became the scapegoat.

  The FBI found overwhelming evidence against her in the safe Paul kept in his cabin. The fool kept journals detailing every depraved act he’d committed, including the names of who purchased the girls. Prosecutors read page after page in open court, pinning Paul’s crimes on Bethany.

  Then the videos. Paul filmed every drug-fueled assault he’d committed against the captive women. Bethany made it all happen, they said. Without her, the prosecutors said, these atrocities would not have happened.

  Awaiting trial, Bethany obsessed over every word the press wrote about Paul, her, and the girls they’d kidnapped, ransomed, or sold off. Her mother ignored her pleas for help. Without family on the outside to send the newspapers, she’d traded her body to the guards. It was all she had left.

  Reading about Chloe turned Bethany’s stomach. The press heaped praise on the miracle girl saved from kidnapping and potential slavery. Chloe took everything from her, and the press lauded on her for it.

  Bethany sat silent throughout the trial, thankful for the dark glasses hiding the rage in her eyes. In a blaze of kerosene, her looks and her future went up in flames

  The jury deliberated for thirty-seven minutes. Guilty on all counts.

  At the sentencing hearing, the judge, an officious old hag, handed down the maximum sentence. Multiple life sentences. No chance of parole.

  “Inmate 58381-007, step out of the vehicle.” The gruff female guard’s voice roused her from her sightseeing. She’d have time to take it all in. She had the rest of her life.

  “Mason! Good to see you. Have a seat.” Chief Justice Jonathan Borisov strolled into his office with the vigor of a young man. He placed a battered leather briefcase on the desk, then grabbed two glasses and a bottle of Woodford Reserve from a nearby shelf.